Infosys promotes top exec Rajesh Krishnamurthy to president amidst another top exit

In an email sent out to employees, CEO Sikka said that the latest round of top-level changes would help the company restore some of the shine that it lost during the June quarter.Anirban Sen | ET Bureau | July 30, 2016, 18:06 IST

Rajesh Krishnamurthy has been promoted to president after the seventh senior executive at Infosys left in a row after Vishal Sikka took over the reins.India’s second largest software exporter Infosys has promoted company veteran Rajesh Krishnamurthy to the rank of president, the fourth such executive at the firm to be promoted to that level, according to two people aware of the development.

Infosys also witnessed yet another top-level departure with the exit of another company veteran Manish Tandon, marking at least the seventh senior executive exit from the company since Vishal Sikka took over the reins of the company.

Tandon’s portfolio of healthcare, insurance and life sciences will now be split between company presidents Sandeep Dadlani and Mohit Joshi. Ravi Kumar S who currently oversees delivery at Infosys was the other executive to be promoted to the rank of president in recent months.

In an email sent out to employees, CEO Sikka said that the latest round of top-level changes would help the company restore some of the shine that it lost during the June quarter.

“Our consulting team saw some short-term challenges in Q1, and under Rajesh's leadership, is now poised to restore itself to grow and evolve towards the tip of our spear, a unit that help elevate our conversation with clients,” Sikka said in the email.

Infosys has also named architecture and technology head Navin Budhiraja as the head of education and research. Prior to his new responsibilities, Budhiraja was also overseeing the company’s Expert Track program which consists of highly-talented programmers or “supercoders” as is popularly known in IT industry parlance.

The latest round of changes at Infosys come at a time when Sikka is attempting to steady the ship even as the company chases aggressive short-term and long-term targets. Experts tracking the company said that the exits are a setback, given the kind of responsibilities that were being overseen by the executives who have left the company in recent weeks.

In the past 4 weeks including Tandon’s exit, Infosys has also been hit with the exits of other company veterans such as Samson David and Anup Uppadhayay.